Lafer Brothers Building

City of Detroit Historic Designation Advisory Board

The exterior of the nine-story reinforced concrete framed Lafer Brothers Building is pleasantly decorative. Its red brick facade is trimmed in cream-colored terra cotta with deep blue accents. Its two lowest stories, faced in terra cotta around the sides and top and beneath the window band that fills most of the second story, serve as the base for the seven-story upper section with its central segmentally arched recess filled with tripartite double transomed winodws.The ninth floor window rises into the head of the arch, and is flanked by narrow windowed brick bays. A low gable with raised central pedestal and a flat sectin of parapet at each end once topped off the facade, but is has been replaced with a plain flat-topped brick parapet. Below, the facade remains virtually unaltered except for the storefronts, which were remodeled in 1925. The building’s fully exposed northwest side now displays a deteriorating mural depicting a straight-on perspective image of a boulevarded avenue, painted c. 1980. A contributing building to the Broadway Avenue Historic District. Detroit Building permit #11714 Nov. 26, 1915.